TWIF 21: VMs Donated and Tor Browser goes Android

In this edition: F-Droid project receives a donation of two VMs, Tor Browser coming to Android, 28 new apps including Emerald Dialer and MiniVector, and 61 app updates including NewPipe and Kwik EFIS & DMAP.

F-Droid is a repository of verified free and open source Android apps, a client to access it, as well as a whole “app store kit”, providing all the tools needed to set up and run an app store. It is a community-run free software project developed by a wide range of contributors. This is their story this past week.

FeaturedminiVector: is a minified version of Riot.im, which results in a smaller and lighter app which requires less scary permissions. It achieves this by removing Jitsi conferencing support and some smaller things. Edit: Note that voice and video calls are not supported in this version. Support may be added back in a future version.

Updated apps

In total, 61 apps were updated this week. Here are the highlights:

AdGuard Content Blocker is an ad blocker for browsers that support content blocking technology. So far, these are Yandex Browser and Samsung Internet browser. Version 2.2.1 adds a whitelist setting, clean filters cache, new locales, and the order of entries will be respected when importing user filter lists.

DNS Hero lets you inspect DNS zones like a superhero. Version 1.1.3 is in, adding a brand new preferences screen and different diagnostics cards colors for improved readability. Behind the scenes, some problems with non-free dependencies were addressed, thanks to @Rudloff).

GPSTest is an app for testing GPS and GNSS capabilities of a device, with real-time information for satellites in view of your device. Version 3.2.0 adds D/M/S support for latitude and longitude, share in multiple location formats, run-time instead of install-time permissions, Greek and Dutch translations, and allows free map movement during location updates.

MHGUDB is an extensive, all in one, Monster Hunter Generations reference. It had a major update to 2.0.1, adding Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate data, and many usability improvements.

Markor 1.1.0 is out. Markor is a powerful text editor for Markdown and todo.txt files. This release adds several new features for working with images, a list of popular files, and a virtual folder for popular & recent files. You can read about even more improvements and bug fixes in the accompanying blog post.

Mastalab was updated from 1.11.0 to 1.12.2, adding several Mastodon 2.5 features such as managing filters, hiding boosts from a specific account, and featuring other accounts on your profile. It can also now DM from profile, open toots in a browser, has improved layout for profiles with a new “pinned” tab, and more.

Mi Manga Nu lets you read and organize mangas. This update from 1.86 to 1.89 now comes as a dedicated F-Droid build flavor, adding new mangas and various fixes.

NewPipe had two updates during this period. First off, 0.14.0 was released featuring a more customizable main page and different UI and UX tweaks including a reworked navigation drawer, drag and drop to close the popup / pip mode and much more. For more info you can check the blog post.

On the heels of that comes the 0.14.1 hotfix, which fixes NewPipe after a change on YouTube’s side basically broke everything. Also includes a fix for long links in video descriptions.

We now have OsmAnd~ 3.2 beta in the repo which is supposed to fix Android 8 rendering performance issues, and fixes a crash on startup that occurred with non-latin maps. This update won’t be automatically suggested to you unless you have “Unstable updates” enabled in the F-Droid app, but you can expand the “Versions” tab and install it manually. Note that this is a beta version: proceed at your own risk.

QKSMS, a material design replacement for the stock AOSP messaging app, was updated from 3.4.5 to 3.5.3, with initial SMS backup and restore, direct share support, smoother scrolling for MMS messages, and many bug fixes.

General feedback can also be sent via Mastodon, or, if you’d like to have a live chat, you can find us in #fdroid on Freenode, on Matrix via #freenode_#fdroid:matrix.org or on Telegram. All of these spaces are bridged together, so the choice is yours. You can also join us on the forum.